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Psalm 53

1  The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ ♦︎
   Corrupt are they, and abominable in their wickedness;
      there is no one that does good.
2  God has looked down from heaven upon the children of earth, ♦︎
   to see if there is anyone who is wise and seeks after God.
3  They are all gone out of the way;
      all alike have become corrupt; ♦︎
   there is no one that does good, no not one.
4  Have they no knowledge, those evildoers, ♦︎
   who eat up my people as if they ate bread,
      and do not call upon God?
5  There shall they be in great fear,
      such fear as never was; ♦︎
   for God will scatter the bones of the ungodly.
6  They will be put to shame, ♦︎
   because God has rejected them.
7  O that Israel’s salvation would come out of Zion! ♦︎
   When God restores the fortunes of his people
      then will Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad.

Saul Rejected as King

10 The word of the Lord came to Samuel: ¹¹‘I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me, and has not carried out my commands.’ Samuel was angry; and he cried out to the Lord all night. ¹²Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, and Samuel was told, ‘Saul went to Carmel, where he set up a monument for himself, and on returning he passed on down to Gilgal.’ ¹³When Samuel came to Saul, Saul said to him, ‘May you be blessed by the Lord; I have carried out the command of the Lord.’ ¹⁴But Samuel said, ‘What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears, and the lowing of cattle that I hear?’ ¹⁵Saul said, ‘They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the cattle, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; but the rest we have utterly destroyed.’ ¹⁶Then Samuel said to Saul, ‘Stop! I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night.’ He replied, ‘Speak.’

17 Samuel said, ‘Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. ¹⁸And the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, “Go, utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.” ¹⁹Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?’ ²⁰Saul said to Samuel, ‘I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. ²¹But from the spoil the people took sheep and cattle, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.’ ²²And Samuel said,
‘Has the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices,
   as in obedience to the voice of the Lord?
Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice,
   and to heed than the fat of rams.
²³ For rebellion is no less a sin than divination,
   and stubbornness is like iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
   he has also rejected you from being king.’

22 I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. ²³And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. ²⁴The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. ²⁵Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. ²⁶People will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations. ²⁷But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practises abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

The River of Life

22Then the angel^* showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ²through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life^* with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ³Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants^* will worship him; ⁴they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. ⁵And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign for ever and ever.